First compliant STO trading on a DEX!

“Thanks to the power of Open Finance, the exchange of real estate is undergoing a paradigm shift.

RealTokens listing inside of Uniswap is significant because it represents a security token operating inside of an Ethereum financial application, while still retaining compliance. Owners of 9943 Marlowe RealToken also collect rent revenue paid by the tenant of the property.

All RealTokens operate with a whitelist in order to remain compliant with U.S. regulations. RealTokens transfers on Ethereum only execute if the address being sent to is approved. This is because RealTokens are technically shares of a company. RealT tokenizes a property by wrapping it inside of a legal entity, an LLC. Ownership of the LLC then defined as a specific batch of ERC20.“

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Good read.

“Synths, or synthetic assets, are derivatives similar to CFDs. Buying them lets you participate on price movements of underlying assets without needing to hold the underlying assets—there is no delivery of the underlying asset. Almost any asset can be mirrored as a synth—cryptocurrency, token, commodity, stock, indice, or fiat.

Derivatives are huge part of legacy financial system and synths are their bankless version.

Do you believe that BTC will go up, but you don’t want to leave the comfort of decentralized Ethereum ecosystem? Just buy sBTC! Are you convinced TRX (Tron) is over-priced and dump is imminent? Buy iTRX.”

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See Also: DeFiZap
See Also: dDAI (same same but different)

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“Bitcoin (BTC) mining will not face a state crackdown in China, authorities have confirmed in new official documents.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission has removed cryptocurrency mining from the list of industries they want to eliminate. A previous incarnation of the document earlier this year had conversely included Bitcoin mining as one of the government’s targets.

The news marks a rare boon for Bitcoin-related activities in China.”

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“Bitfinex and a blockchain project launched by Kim Dotcom have “mutually agreed” to part ways, scuppering a planned initial exchange offering (IEO) for the controversial internet entrepreneur.

Citing the current “regulatory environment” and the “risks associated with raising funds” for the project, Bitfinex said in a blog post Wednesday that it was in the interest of its “community” not to host the sale of Dotcom’s kimcoin token.”

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“Binance has today released an open-source implementation of its Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS), a new cryptographic protocol for distributed key generation and signing. Binance claims that threshold signatures will mean that a single compromised device won’t put a user’s assets at risk.

TSS technology allows us to replace all signing commands with distributed computations so that the private key is no longer a single point of failure. For example, each of three users could receive a share of the private signing key, and in order to sign a transaction, at least two of the three users will need to join to construct the signature.”

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“Square’s Cash App has started charging fees of as much as 1.76 percent on bitcoin purchases.

Cash App may charge a fee when you buy or sell bitcoin. If so, the fee will be listed on the trade confirmation before you complete a transaction.”

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“North Korea employed a shipping and logistics firm called Marine China, which runs on a blockchain platform, to avoid international sanctions by laundering stolen cryptocurrency.

Severe sanctions against North Korea from the UN and other international bodies have pushed the country’s regime towards cryptocurrencies over time. The country is developing its own cryptocurrency with properties similar to bitcoin to sidestep international sanctions.”

“The draft in question — which is still subject to amendments — urges member states to develop a common approach to cryptocurrencies, possibly banning high-risk projects. Reuters suggests that such a law could escalate into an EU regulatory campaign against cryptocurrencies.

The draft prepared by the Finnish EU presidency also suggests that the European Central Bank should consider issuing its own digital currency.”

See Also: US Federal Reserve Hiring Retail Payments Manager to Research Digital Currencies
See Also: Joe Lubin: China Will Avoid Blockchain’s ‘Decentralizing Aspects’
See Also: President Erdogan: Turkey to Finish Testing Digital Lira in 2020

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“Coinbase’s legal chief argued private corporations are best positioned to build a much-debated digital U.S. dollar, and that the government should stand back and let them, doing little, if anything, to regulate their underlying blockchains.

There is no more need for the government to control the blockchain policy of stablecoin issuers than there is for the government to dictate the technology used by privately-owned commercial and investment banks.

If the Fed-controlled dollar backs the private sector minted stablecoin, then, he pointed out, the fed still controls the stablecoin’s underlying monetary policy.

In short: the private sector should build the technology, and the public sector should set monetary policy.”

See Also: Libra Won’t Spread as Quickly as Facebook, Says Calibra Exec
See Also: Int’l Regulator: Stablecoin ‘Structure’ Determines If It’s a Security

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Yeah, this is not centralized at all. /s/

“The Stellar Development Foundation has burned 55 billion of its XLM tokens, over half the cryptocurrency’s supply.

As much as we wanted to use the lumens that we held, it was very hard to get them into the market. SDF will not burn any additional lumens.

The foundation now controls 30 billion XLM, with [an additional] 20 billion in circulation.” (meaning the foundation continues to control 60% of total supply.)

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“Ethereum developers are using the Lightning payments network to build bridges into the bitcoin ecosystem. Radar, best known for its decentralized exchange (DEX) relayers for 0x, just launched a service called RedShift, which allows people to pay a lightning invoice from an ethereum wallet.

Our number one request from [DEX] users and market makers was somehow adding the ability to trade bitcoin.

[Likewise], the Cross-Chain Working Group is already building a system for wrapped bitcoin tokens that can be used on the ethereum blockchain.”

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“In a new legal filing made public late on Monday, Sostack claimed Ripple’s monthly sale of XRP out of escrow constitutes on-going securities sales. Ripple must respond to the new filing by Dec. 4, with oral arguments expected to commence Jan. 15.”

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“I cannot believe how crazy trading BTCUSD on the short term is right now. The gap on the CME has filled already. It’s thinly traded yes. But man, I’m highly suspicious of the price action across all the exchanges of late, more so than usual.”

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“The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) announced Monday that it had filed to take control of Einstein Exchange after the platform said on Oct. 31 that it planned to shut down its operations within the next 60 to 90 days. Einstein owes its customers $12.4 million.”

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“Coke One North America (CONA) — the tech firm that manages IT operations for the soda giant’s bottlers — is using a blockchain solution developed by German software firm SAP to manage its supply chain.

With blockchain, CONA expects to reduce the duration of order-reconciliation from 50 days to just a few days. An inter-organizational, transparent distributed ledger will give real-time insights into the transactions made by all the different bottlers on the network, which generates over $21 billion in revenue per year.”

See Also: Global Blockchain B2B Volume Expected to Hit $4.4 Trillion by 2024

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“Tradewind is taking its shot at stopping counterfeit gold seals and helping precious metals investors find metals that are produced responsibly. Designed with the Royal Canadian Mint and built on R3’s Corda Enterprise platform, Tradewind Origins tracks the geography and name of the mine as well as under what standards the metal was produced.

You have corporations and jewelers that want to reduce reputational risk and their customers are interested in knowing that what they’re buying was produced responsibility in accordance with ESG principals.”

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“The blockchain-based identification system will assign a unique, global digital ID to Chinese smart cities, aiming to improve the connectivity and data sharing between these cities. Smart cities across China have been able to apply for their own city identification code since Sunday.”

“The platform allows businesses to choose from a growing set of token-building templates that conform to the Token Taxonomy Initiative (TTI) – a standards push and enterprise consortium. The Azure Blockchain Tokens platform is being released alongside a host of example tokens.

The TTI has already gone further than other enterprise plays in getting different and competing blockchain factions – from IBM to R3 to ethereum variants – under one roof.

We are creating a platform in the cloud where any token within the TTI framework can snap into place. So you can build applications where you want to use tokens with, for example, Dynamics, SAP, applications in the [Microsoft] Office suite or some other business automation process.”

See Also: Global Leaders Unite to Unveil Comprehensive Framework for Tokenization

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Good read.

“Automated exit for inactive members is the primary feature for every SwiftDao. Members who vote less than 4 times in the last 6 months are required to sell their tokens in the monthly auction.

In the words of the SEC, ‘If every member in an investment club actively helps decide what investments to make, the membership interests in the club would probably not be considered securities.‘ Simply, all members must be actively engaged in the management of the firm.

Automated exit solves [multiple] problems holding back Daos:

1. Securities regulation,
2. Fraud from the principal-agent problem,
3. Prevents Vote Buying, and
4. Forms a Community.”

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“After the 2018 crypto crash, up to 90 percent of blockchain-focused VCs left the market. Now, as China’s central government pushes for greater blockchain adoption, some are returning. 

We are excited about the companies in China, especially in crypto trading platforms, infrastructure, and defi [decentralized finance] space.

After the baptism by fire of the last market cycle, Chinese blockchain venture firms are maturing and evolving to find more sustainable paths, investors say. Valuations are becoming more reasonable and speculative players have left the market. At the same time, VCs firms are diversifying away from equity plays in startups towards areas such as secondary trading and bitcoin mining.“

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“The costs of providing the required level of security, support and technology is not economically feasible on our own. In the event a merger or sell is not completed in a timely matter then the exchange may not resume operations and take appropriate action.

DX.Exchange had offered trading of tokenized stocks in major tech firms that included Amazon, Baidu, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia and Tesla. These products required investors to undergo an additional layer of KYC checks, in compliance with the European Union Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II.”

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“FATF published its draft guidance on digital identity Thursday, for governments, regulated entities and other stakeholders to enforce anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing terrorism (CFT) regulations.

Notably, the guidance specifically lists distributed ledger technology (DLT) as a tool that can aid in the growth of digital ID networks. The organization stressed the importance of digital identity in payment systems, which could be used to identify stakeholders in stablecoin-related transactions.”

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“Monday is the deadline for an XRP holder to file a response to Ripple’s motion to dismiss his suit against the company. Ripple’s statement that XRP is not a security because it is a currency may not necessarily hold up. ‘Just because it’s one thing doesn’t mean it can’t be another.‘

While Ripple presented a strong defense, the case is likely nowhere near complete, and the company will remain at risk of further lawsuits.“

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“The introduction of bech32 addresses shows its commitment to speeding up the adoption of SegWit. According to transactionfee.info statistics, the percentage of SegWit transactions has hit an all-time high of 57.7% on Oct. 8.

Bitfinex also hinted at adding support of the Lightning Network (LN) soon.”

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“Nexus announced Monday what it called its seventh “activation” – a protocol upgrade that brings smart-contract functionality to the Nexus blockchain, which launched as a fork of the original bitcoin protocol in 2014.

If all goes well, other blockchains can feel free to follow suit by borrowing the code. ‘All the bitcoin forks could essentially upgrade and potentially utilize it.'”

“We believe by allowing users to manage their own credentials, they can get verified once and then they are able to reuse that verification across multiple financial service providers. 

We are partnering with the PwC UK team to test how users can reuse their credentials to sign up for multiple financial services within an ‘open banking’ financial ecosystem.  Through the pilot we’re ultimately learning how to return control of data back to the individual.”

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“Craig Wright has attested that he cannot finance his court settlement negotiated with the Kleiman estate.

Oct. 30, Wright pulled out of the settlement agreement in which he would forfeit half his intellectual property and bitcoin mined prior to 2014. With the agreement broken, trial motions are now back on.”

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“The guidelines set out HMRC’s view on cryptocurrency transactions, which taxes apply, how to file tax returns and accounting practices, among others. The tax authority explicitly stated that it does not consider any of the current types of cryptocurrencies to be money or currency.

HMRC had previously considered cryptocurrency trading to be the same as gambling. However, the latest tax guidance update states that the agency does not consider the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies as such.”

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“Bitfinex moved 1 .561 million Tether (USDT) from the Omni Protocol to the Liquid Bitcoin (BTC) sidechain.

Liquid sidechain has now more liquidity for atomic swaps and cross-exchange arbitrage.”

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“We believe the killer app for any blockchain is Stablecoin Payments. If a blockchain can master this, it can add tremendous value to the global economy with far reaching implications. The Fuel sidechain is designed exclusively handle large volumes of payments on Ethereum. Additionally Fuel can be used, with centralized order book matching, to perform trustless and non-custodial native atomic exchanges.

Post-Istanbul we believe we can push the limit to around 200 TPS. With some trivial upgrades to layer-1 we can push this number to the high 2000s. Furthermore, with the single integration of erasure code data availability proofs to Ethereum Ethereum’s TPS can be scaled quadratically, to on the order of 10s of thousands to millions of TPS.”

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“We’re proud to announce the launch of Maple — the world’s first crypto bond platform. It enables users of DeFi lending platforms to issue crypto bonds. As DeFi lending expands, users will be able to create banks which issue bonds to raise money for lending to customers. 

Maple replaces lending collateralised by cash with lending collateralised by assets.  Maple gives Investors different risk grade options. Until now you had one collateralisation level (150%).”

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“I use the term crypto banks for centralized exchanges. Money protocols—these are Maker, Uniswap, Set, Compound, Synthetix. They provide similar services as the crypto banks, but they’re built as permissionless and programmable protocols.

If you zoom out, the battle isn’t really between money protocols and crypto banks. These will grow together, even while they compete, they’ll help each other. No, it’s open finance vs traditional finance. Crypto vs fiat. A system fully reliant on banks vs a system that’s more reliant on protocols.“

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“Wallets are critical infrastructure for cryptocurrencies. Wallets are also the gateway to Web3 just like how web browsers are the gateway to the Web2 Internet. A lot of research and work is being done right now to design better wallet UX.

In this piece I give an overview of the crypto wallet ecosystem and highlight some of the recent improvements in wallet UI/UX, including wallet SDKs, smart contract wallets, and meta transactions.”

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“Ethereum development firm CasperLabs announced “Highway,” allegedly the first correct-by-construction Casper Proof of Stake (PoS) implementation that is provably live and safe. A protocol is safe if it is consistent in its decision and live if it guarantees a decision. 

By releasing CasperLabs Highway to the public via an open source license, we hope to inspire further innovation for the benefit of all.”

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“He explained that KYC helps law enforcement to track illegal transactions but also exposes the public to hacking, phishing and identity theft.

“It’s about time we reconsider if the trade-off is worth it.”

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“Elizabeth Warren, the current favorite for the 2020 Democratic Nomination, has seen her presidential odds continue along a downward trend, falling this week from $0.28 to $0.22/share, after reaching as high as $0.36 earlier this month.

Once neck-and-neck with President Trump, she has seen the gap between them widen to its current mark of $0.19. As recently as October 13th, Warren’s odds had been within $0.04 of DJT’s. What’s more, no Democratic hopeful has made up the slack of the falling confidence in Warren.”

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“The debt per United States citizen is $69,724 and the debt to gross domestic product ratio is 106.65%. Every dollar of U.S. national debt is, in fact, a reason to buy Bitcoin (BTC). 

Global Central Banking is about to go bust. […] All fiat money will die.”

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“TrustExplorer is an auditing protocol offering real-time, distributed, and final audits. Blockchain technology can automate the capture of accounting data and verify its accuracy, reducing the risk of alteration or corruption.

You open up the possibility of real-time audit and being able to provide transparency.”

“If you have an account with crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX, there’s never been a better time to update your security preferences.

On Friday at 08:00 UTC, BitMEX alerted its clientele that it had accidentally revealed many of its user’s email addresses in the CC: field. The unfortunate email also opens users up to targeted phishing attacks. The exchange appeared to suggest a bug caused the incident.

The mishap adds to the woes of the exchange, which is also reportedly being probed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC) over whether it has allowed U.S. traders to use its platform.”

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“Another flash crash has occurred for bitcoin (BTC), this time appearing on the Coinbase Pro and Deribit exchanges.

BTC’s spot price dipped from $9,260 to $9,055 in quick succession on Coinbase’s exchange. BTC dropped to a low of $7,720 on Deribit, sending shock waves throughout the derivatives market. Liquidations shot through the roof on Bitmex, for example.

Deribit will reimburse over $1.3 million in losses.“

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“Acquisition of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies: It is prohibited to purchase BTC with this payment method.

This follows a move by the BCA earlier this week, which limited the amount of U.S. Dollars Argentinian citizens could buy each month. The maximum amount was reduced from $10,000 to just $200.”

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“Users can now download the test wallet client from its website, create an address and receive private keys as well as request and test Gram tokens in the app via a special Telegram bot called TestTonBot.

TestTonBot invites users to test out the service by requesting 5 to 20 tokens to the generated crypto address on the app. The test transactions are visible on the Telegram Open Network (TON) testnet explorer.”

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“The CEO of Delaware-registered blockchain firm Veritaseum LLC and New York-registered Veritaseum Inc., Reggie Middleton, was ordered to pay $8.4 million in disgorgement. Additionally, Middleton is liable for a civil penalty of $1 million.

Moreover, the report states that the defendants will not be allowed to engage in any offering of digital security. Since Oct. 9, Veritaseum (VERI) has dropped about 37% from $24 to $15 per coin.”

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“The firm is the first blockchain company to be granted both licenses. By acquiring the license, Harbor has the green light to service higher class firms, investors, and offerings. [Harbor is] seeking to become a “one-stop-shop” for digital asset issuance.

Harbor recently engaged in a $100 million real estate tokenizing effort on the ethereum blockchain on behalf of four firms.”

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“During the blackout earlier this year, it became clear to Brito that poor internet infrastructure was a leading barrier to crypto adoption.

Locha Mesh has created two hardware prototypes so far, Turpial and Harpy, both of which act like small routers that don’t rely on local WiFi. Instead, they pass messages around the “mesh” until one outlet finally has an internet connection.

Basically, we are providing an accessible solution for anyone who finds themselves without energy or internet access in need for a safe, decentralized and censorship-resistant way of communication.”